By Lupin on Thursday, March 30, 2006 - 09:55 am:

The best bet is to find a USB-IF certified product. You may take a look at their site:

http://www.usb.org/kcompliance/view

By Anonymous on Thursday, March 30, 2006 - 03:59 am:

I don't remember it being that cheap, but that's the one. Can you recommend a better one? I am definitely not trying to go cheap on my computer setup. I just happened to have this laying around. Thanks.

By tom on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 - 07:09 pm:

Never heard of Stratitec before. A company that sells USB A-A extension cables (not allowed according to the spec) is dubious at best; if their hub (http://secure.stratitec.com/product_info.php?cPath=9_130&products_id=797) sells for $7 bucks makes me go hmm...

By Anonymous on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 - 01:10 pm:

The hub I have is a Stratitec USB 2.0 Hi Speed 4 Port Hub. He you ever heard of it?

By tom on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 - 12:26 am:

That's odd. Even if the hub retains the power, there is not supposed to be any traffic on the hub's ports, and absence of traffic for 3 milliseconds or more means "go to suspend" for the keyboard. "Go to suspend" implies turning to a very low power state, and all lights and the display are turned off. It seems your hub is keeping the keyboard alive? Happen to know which hub this is?

When logging off or shutting down (or sending to a sleep state), the software is supposed to blank the LCD, so that should not be a problem. The backlights are LEDs and pretty indestructible, I remember a number of 5..10 years until they dim to half the brightness (which subjectively still seems much more than "half").

By Lupin on Tuesday, March 28, 2006 - 10:12 am:

I believe this is hub specific. Some hubs will turn off the power when the host is off. Some, however, will remain the power even this host is asleep. You may want to try another brand.

By Anonymous on Tuesday, March 28, 2006 - 05:31 am:

Have another issue. Now that I'm using the USB power hub when I turn off the computer there is still power going to the keyboard from the hub so it stays on. Can anything be permanently burned into the LCD screen and will the keyboard lights burn out? Do you have a suggested fix? Thanks.

By Anonymous on Friday, March 24, 2006 - 10:53 am:

Well I appreciate all the help. The Logitech service guys were right to lead me to this website for your help. Thanks again.

By tom on Friday, March 24, 2006 - 08:34 am:

That's the total mystery to me. The G15 software is probably as non-intrusive as it goes for "device utilities". It does not install any kernel mode drivers, or services; the only two apps that are run are lgdcore.exe and lcdmon.exe (plus the lcd applets lcdmedia.exe and lcdclock.exe), and these are only run once a user logs in.

Between power up and up to and including the log in screen, not a single byte of G15 software has been run.

By Anonymous on Friday, March 24, 2006 - 03:58 am:

Yep, the hub is a 2.0. What I still find interesting is that the software is somehow making this occur. The keyboard, if it is drawing too much, show do this with the software uninstalled also right? Clearly when I worked with Logitech service we found that with the program installed this issue did occur. Without it normal boot up.? What do you think is up with that?

By tom on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 08:09 pm:

Thanks for the feedback. I can't quite believe it, either. They keyboard's power consumption is totally in line with the USB specifications (including things like "inrush current" that takes place when you plug it in). Furthermore, it will only turn on the lights (the power-hungry part) when the host tells it that it's OK to use 500mA. And since it's a hub, it has to reserve 100mA for each port - in other words, it is not allowed to consume more than 300mA, and it doesn't.

Another theory - is the external hub a 2.0-compliant one, or an old 1.1? I would be willing to place a bet on 2.0. If that is the case, there is another explanation (which points to broken BIOS again). Inside your PC are actually multiple USB host controllers; one dedicated for high-speed only traffic, and a few for full-speed and low speed traffic. Which one gets to talk on a root hub is determined by whether a high-speed, or low/full-speed is plugged in. With a low or full speed device (like the G15), the "legacy controller" will be used. With a high-speed device (such as a 2.0 hub), the high speed controller will be used.

So, if you are using a 2.0 hub, you're essentially switching over the handling to the high-speed controller (EHCI), whose driver in the BIOS appears to work right. The driver built into the BIOS for the companion controller (UHCI or OHCI) seems to not like the device.

Without a repro here (still no dice) where we can look at the actual bus traffic, the above is just theory.

But the main thing is that you got it to work right.

By Anonymous on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 04:22 pm:

Can't believe it. The power hub worked! Boot up is a little slower but not bad. Looks like the power draw of the keyboard is too much for the computer USB port. Do you think this is a computer problem?

By tom on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 04:11 am:

The amount the LCD draws is really negligible. It's the backlight(s) that draw most of the juice.

We have an XPS 600 at work and tried to repro the problem, but couldn't (with direct connection to the PC). However, there was one weirdness where, after a few minutes of idling (and walking away from the system), it seemed to be "stuck" with a blanked screen. Hitting the power button brought back a blinking cursor (just like at boot) but it didn't go any further. There's definitely something weird going on with this combination of system/keyboard.

Let us know if your problem goes away with a powered hub.

I had a similar problem with an older machine (Intel motherboard) where a web cam plugged in at boot time would slow the boot process to an absolute crawl. In that case, it was a broken BIOS that choked on the webcam.

By Anonymous on Thursday, March 23, 2006 - 04:03 am:

Thanks Tom. His issue is exactly the same. I'm going to try the power hub tonight. It sure is a unique solution. I would think that if the keyboard drew too much power it would do thew same thing with or without the software installed. Maybe it has something to do with the power draw for the LCD.

By tom on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - 02:56 pm:

OK, here's someone with exactly the same configuration (don't know about BIOS) that had exactly the same problem, and he solved it by hooking up the keyboard behind a powered hub, as weird as that might sound.

http://www.g15mods.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=326&highlight=dell+xps+600

in particular the post here:
http://www.g15mods.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2145#2145

By Anonymous on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 - 03:49 am:

When I get to the computer tonight I'll try getting into the BIOS. I'll see if I can navigate with the keyboard. The A06 BIOS arew the latest and greatest posted 2/16/06 on Dell's website. At this point I'm willing to try anything to figure this out. Thanks.

By Anonymous on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 11:53 pm:

Software installed or not makes no difference to the BIOS's functionality. I seem to remember reading that there was a problem with the BIOS of the XPS 600, but can't remember where I saw it (or whether there was a resolution for the problem).

By Anonymous on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 12:02 pm:

Can you get into BIOS? And when you do can you navigate using the keyboard??

By Anonymous on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 11:28 am:

This is a real problem. Both the people at Dell and Logotech that I've talked to cannot figure out what's going on.I have to believe others have or will experience this problem.

By Anonymous on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 10:44 am:

I updated my BIOS from A02 to A06. It didn't solve the problem. And yes it wouldn't boot into Windows XP Pro. With the software not installed the computer booted into windows just fine.

By Lupin on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 09:58 am:

I believe you mean that the system will not boot into Windows, correct?

This maybe a BIOS issue that it won't recognize the keyboard correctly. You should obtain a new BIOS update from Dell and see if it can fix the problem.

By Anonymous on Tuesday, March 21, 2006 - 03:50 am:

Can anyone help me with this issue? I really like this keyboard but without the software working properly I'll have to return it. Thanks.

By Anonymous on Monday, March 20, 2006 - 04:41 pm:

I have a Dell XPS 600 and when I have the G15 Keyboard plugged in and the software installed the computer will not boot. The A: drive stays on and a cursor remains blinking in the upper left corner.Iworked with logitech.com and we determined that the computer does not recognize the software. I tried the beta version and the problem still exists.